Yes, oxalate. Thank you, Jeff. I don't know what I would do without you.
Oxalate. So, used to be that Harvard said they were on the lower side, so everyone, of course, ate blueberries. And Harvard used to say that raspberries were on the higher side, so everyone gave up raspberries.
They didn't need to, but they did anyway, unless they were working with me. And then now blueberries, Harvard re-studied. And it says blueberries, half a cup is 18.5, 18 and a half milligrams of oxalate, so they've gone up.
Now, a couple things. Remember, you get 100 bucks of oxalate in a bank account. I just sent it to you, and you're getting a debit card because you can decide how you want to spend your oxalate money.
I don't want you to go over budget, so you get 100 bucks in there. So, if you have half a cup of blueberries at 18.5, let's just round it up to 19, hell, let's just round it up to 20. You still got 80 bucks worth of oxalate left, okay?
So, you got plenty of oxalate. First, "Well, Jill, what the heck? Why should I trust Harvard?
They say blueberries are low, now they're saying blueberries are high." Whenever anyone studies a food, and then studies it even a week later, that food may have a different amount of oxalate depending upon the soil conditions, the sunlight, you name it. There is no You'll never People often say this, "Why ain't it on a food label, Jill?" It will never be because there's too much discrepancies whether the researcher isn't as good as the other researcher was, whether it was the growing conditions of the plant.
There's many different things that go into it. And you're not going to see people studying oxalate all the time. It's very expensive.
So, it's just something that we have to live with. And why do we go by Harvard? Because I've been using this list along with other academic sets people, doctors, and institutions use the Harvard list.
And I can speak for myself, and I can also speak for Dr. Coe, who's been doing this for years. He's been using the Harvard list since the '80s.
My patients lower their oxalate. I never have an oxalate reading that's higher than it should be. I never do, unless the patient has said, "Well, Jill, I kind of went off the rail that day.
But, you know, I know, I know, I know." Or, "I didn't get my calcium needs that day." So, believe me when I tell you that oxalate is the least important part of this diet once you take away spinach, chia seeds, cashew products, almond products. Please listen to me when I say that. Everybody comes to me worried about oxalate.
And that's why you'll see a lot of oxalate things on this channel because that's what everyone is always wanting to know about. Quite frankly, I get sick of talking about it because I know it's the least How do you know, Jill? How do you know?
Who are you? I know because I'm looking at your urine collections every day. I've looked at thousands of urine collections in almost 30 years.
Oxalates never the issue once you take away those foods and get your calcium needs met. It's the salt and the sugar and not drinking enough water, salt especially. People can lower that for their year first urine collection, and then three urine collections later, their salt is high again.
Salt is the hardest. Getting enough fluid's hardest, but calcium's hard for me 'cause you don't know how to get it. Once you know how to get it, easy peasy.
Not overeating meat, easy peasy. But the But the salt is hard. All right, now, hold on.
Somebody went in my whoozey. Okay. Blueberries.
I eat them on most days. Here's what I will tell patients to do. All the other berries are pretty low.
I eat every single day: winter, fall, spring, summer, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries. Every single day. I have kidney stone formers in my family, I use the same oxalate bank account analogy that you do, and I do not have high oxalate and I never go over my budget, not even near it.
So, you could say, "Well, I want to have blueberries every day, Jill, but they're now high." But look at your list. The oxalate food list is at kidneystonediet.com. Blueberries are let's, like I said, round up, it says 18 and a half, 20 milligrams for half a cup.
So, have a fourth of a cup of blueberries. So, here's what I do: I have my Greek yogurt, I have it on most days, 'cause it's my calcium source and it's a good non-meat protein source for me. I use Fage— a lot of people call it Fage, but it's Fage nonfat plain Greek yogurt.
I'm not saying that to correct you, I'm telling you that in case you're like, "What the hell is Fage?" Fage, okay? So, it's nonfat plain Greek yogurt. I use nonfat because I have cholesterol issues, so I keep my fat low.
And I always put all of those blueberries all of those berries in my yogurt, probably about a fourth of a cup of each berry. So, now I still have all these berries in small amounts, very low oxalate. So, there's It's always going to be about portion, not perfection.
So, you can have blueberries. You just can't have five cups a day like you were doing when you thought raspberries were high in oxalate. So, it's never about taking these foods away, it's about stop overeating them in really huge portions, and always put them in something like a calcium-based product like what I'm doing with my yogurt.
So, even if I am having a little bit of blueberry, I'm pairing it with calcium, so I'm not worried about it. Also, it's delicious. I use frozen fruit because I live by myself a lot now since my son is at NYU, so I use frozen fruit, so it doesn't go bad.
It's even it's it's picked at the ripest part, so it's I think it's better than fresh. And then I put that in my in my yogurt, and it makes it almost like a dessert for me, so it's really delicious. So, blueberries, please have them.
Don't eat five cups a day of them. Put them in with other berries in your oatmeal or yogurt or however or in a smoothie. But if you're like, "But, Jill, I want more berries," use the other berries to compensate for the less blueberry portion.
Does that make sense, Jeff?
